DOS HERMANOS DO MADRID: A LAST HURRAH?

Dos Hermanos have never apologised for our love of Spain and in particular Madrid and, over the period of the last four years, we have catalogued nearly a dozen visits between us. There was, however, a certain air of “ the end of an era” about our visit of December 2009.

In part, I am guessing it was linked to the rapidly approaching end of the first decade of the Millennium. It is a little under ten years since DH took our first joint trip to Madrid and came to the collective decision that it is our favourite city on earth, a view that has not changed despite thousands of air miles clocked up between us since then.

In part, I am sure, it is because of the approaching changes in our personal lives. My impending wedding and move to LA LA Land will inevitably mean that such hugely enjoyable journeys may be fewer and further apart in future.

Add to these the fact that, although we will continue to give it our best shot, we wont be able to attack the unbeatable food of Madrid with such gusto in years to come as middle age wearies our bones and reduces our appetites. With my doctor already suggesting that I should replace booze with blood pressure medication and look to lower my cholesterol levels to numbers, which did not suggest I was “73% pork fat” there was always going to be an element of “last hurrah” about the final DH assault on Madrid of the ‘00’s.

Madrid itself has seen considerable changes in the last decade. Not just the central areas around Plaza Sol, Meyor and Santa Ana, which always attracted tourists, but have now been scrubbed and polished to make them even more visitor friendly. It is also noticeable in the changing demographic of the city’s population, seemingly a function of increased immigration and fuelled by the arrival of workers from Spain’s own commonwealth of former colonies.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Madrid’s thousands of bars and restaurants, where a generation of grumpy barmen and waiters in their ill fitting white jackets appear to be slowly retiring in favour of younger men and women from South America, presumably more willing than their home grown equivalents to work the long hours demanded by Spanish consumers.

What has not changed however is the ease with which DH slot into the Madrileño rhythm after years of practice and when I arrived on a flight a few hours after HP, I found that he was already six or so bars to the good and had photographs of tempting tapas to prove it. It did not take me long to get into the swing, however, and what followed was as fun and colon challenging as any visit had been in the previous ten years.

People often e-mail and ask us for our recommendations when they are visiting Madrid and, although we always toss out a few suggestions of places they might like, our usual response is to say that such a request is really missing the point about what makes this such a special city. The DH MO is not to visit specific bars, although we do, of course, have a few favourites after all these years, but to select neighbourhoods both central and outlying and then spend time dipping in and out of the seemingly endless selection of bars at random, ordering a caña and seeing what tapa is placed in front of us.

It is an approach that has paid dividends and, thanks mainly to HP’s impeccable research, has introduced us to bars in barrios as far apart as Charmatin to the North East and Villauerde in the South. It has taken us to streets like Calle Ponzano, which houses bars like Fide, specialising in tapas of seafood from tins, to Calle Cava Baja, where Nuevo tapas are served up to bright young things at bars like Casa Lucas. It has taken us Bar Bona De Leon, close to Plaza España, where your €1 beer comes with a plate of chicken wings large enough to make supper unnecessary to Los Torezznos, in ritzy Salamanca, where the waiter chops up large slabs of salty pork belly and oily chorizo for you to form improbable sandwiches with crusty white rolls.

Along the way, of course, we fit in a meal or two, never any more, as it simply isn’t necessary. This time, we celebrated Spain’s Asador, or restaurants specialising in the cooking of meat on charcoal grills or in wood fired ovens. Asador De Aranda, as the name suggests prepares food from the region near Burgos, particularly Lechal Lamb, basted as it roasts to a succulent tenderness and served with no more than a simple green salad and a bottle of Ribera del Duero. Asador Los Arcos, on the other hand brings in little piggies from Avila, in Castilla De Leon to do something similar, producing soft flesh, crackling skin and creamy layers of fat. Two great meals, and like the bars, served with such efficiency and such little fuss that it served to remind us why we always feel deflated when we return to the fashionable options of London’s tepid dining scene.

But, enough of the moaning, this was as good a trip to Madrid as DH have ever experienced and if things have changed for both us and this city in the last ten years and will no doubt change even more in the next, it was as perfect a last hurrah as you could have asked for. It may have marked the end of an era, but it certainly does not mark the end of our love affair with this remarkable and magical city.

DOS HERMANOS GO SPAIN: MAINLY MAHOU

As soon as I walked into the bar that familiar smell - a mixture of frying, coffee and Ducados - hit me. The tough, knife-wielding chica behind the zinc counter threw out a gruff digame which demanded the response of cana (although with my Northern European twang it sounded incredibly limp and effete compared to her deep and throaty growl).

A small glass was filled with beer, the foaming head expertly sliced away with a knife, and slammed down in front of me. Moments later a small plate of prawns, heavily salted and darkened by their contact with the plancha, were banged down next to the beer. I picked up one of the prawns and bit its head off, sucking it noisily, then depositing it on the floor, already littered with fishy carapaces. I took a sip of the beer, cold and mouth-puckeringly bitter. Some of the beer splashed onto my trousers. I let out a curse. I looked up and the chica was smirking. I drained my glass and demanded an otra. This time my voice sounded deeper more authentic. Now, I was definitely in Madrid.

Madrid is a city that just works for Dos Hermanos and at the heart of it all is the bar. Unless you've been in a Spanish bar especially one in this city then you won't understand how central they are to Spanish life. Food is always provided, either at the counter or in a small comida at the back of the bar. There'll be a hatch through which you'll see a woman (it´s always a woman) hard at work cooking. The waiters and barmen will be wearing black trousers and ill-fitting white shirts. There may be some bowties as well. They´ll be of the miserablist tendency, sure, but will also be super-efficient. Best of all though with your cana you´ll get a free tapa.

I´m guessing here but Madrid has the largest number of bars per capita in Europe, possibly the World and although I always try and visit some old favourites I'm gradually working my way through them all. Does life get any better ?

¡Salud!

MADRID & VALLADOLID

Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be spandex jackets one for everyone

As you have probably read my dear Hermano (Segundo) has come to the end of his Eat My Globe journey. But before retiring to his garret to fulfil his contractual obligations he requested one more visit to Dos Hermanos’ second home Spain. After much research and head scratching I thought that a little trip through La Rioja and the Basque Country (neatly side-stepping Catalunya) would provide a small but perfectly formed itinerary at the probably the best time of the year: Clement weather, spring lamb and crucially, no tourista.

Flights were arranged and a meeting point of Madrid (where else) was agreed. I’d booked a train to Valladolid at a time which had a BA screw-up factor built-in but because it was early in the week (or maybe they are getting better at this flying lark) they managed to get me in bang on time. Likewise with Alitalia for HS. The result was we had a couple of hours to kill before our train left Chamartin station for Valladolid. We dumped our luggage and ventured out into the barrio near Plaza de Castilla.

Of course, this being Madrid we were in our first bar after about a minute sucking on cold canas and chowing down on a free tapita. Of course this being Madrid there were about a dozen (probably more) bars within five minutes of the station. Of course this being Madrid we became overexcited and manfully attempted to drink in every single one only giving up when we realised our train would be leaving without us. HS did posit that we could forget about our trip and just carry on bar crawling and maybe stay in Madrid for the week but this idea was vetoed when we realised we had prepaid for a number of hotels and, well, we ought to vary our MO a tad.

Yes, we varied MO so much than when we arrived in Valladolid - the hard-working capital of Castilla y Leon - our first port of call after checking-in was the nearest bar to see what was what. Beer, wine and tapas. In Spain ? What are the odds ?

You can usually tell whereabouts you are in Spain by the bar culture. So for instance in Madrid one orders Canas, or small shots of beer whereas in the South they become just good old Cervezas and in the North, Cortos (or Zoritos in the Basque Country). For food, Canapes or Mondatitos hold sway in the North, Seafood (boiled or fried) is the munchy of choice in the South. Valladolid was of the “bits on bread” persuasion washed down predominantly with wine (it lies at the centre of four major wine-producing areas).

Although not a huge tapas town there are however enough places such that you could visit several bars a day and still not exhaust the possibilities after a year. During a couple of hours we sampled some pulpo, cut into carpaccio-thin slivers and grilled, an odd speciality of a spicy chorizo encased in bread and baked and some simply steamed mussels that were absurdly cheap even with the bad pound/euro exchange rate. Best of all was our final snack of the evening. Some sweet and tender chuletilas de cordero had been perfectly grilled, sprinkled with rock salt and served on a bed of chips cooked in Olive Oil. With a glass of a suitable red it summed up everything we love about Spain: honesty, quality and a commitment to the good things in life. That’ll do us just fine.

MADRID: MAINLINING MAHOU

Throughout the whole EAT MY GLOBE trip so far, I have been in regular contact with dear sibling, H1 and, while he has expressed considerable support for my efforts and, in the case of The American Royal or my trips to indulge in Texas BBQ, not a little jealousy, he has tempered this with one regular and simple phrase.

“Yes, but is it Spain?”

And, he is right. No matter how much I have enjoyed my travels to date (bearing in mind it is nearly over with just three more countries to go) at the back of my mind, I have always had a sneaking feeling that all that EAT MY GLOBE will reveal to me is that Spain remains my favourite country on the face of God’s earth and, by hook or by crook, my next adventure is to move there.

So, when I was invited by the good people of Gonzalez Byass to join them at the sherry fair in Jerez this week it seemed liked the perfect opportunity for H1 and H2 to proceed it with a visit to the place that we both place at the very top of our list of favourite cities, Madrid.

Unless you have visited (and if not, why not?) it is hard to explain the appeal of Madrid.

Is it the fact that it is hard to walk more than ten yards without passing a bar that sells food and wine that back in London would make the Hart brothers cream themselves at the thought of what they could charge?

Is it the fact that for the price of your beer you invariably get a freebie? A plate of nuts, some fried seafood, some offcuts of jamon. No muss no fuss.

Is it the fact that the Madrilenos predicate their entire life around things, which they find enjoyable and don’t bother too much with little things, like work, that might get in the way of that enjoyment?

Or, is it simply the fact that, above all else, Madrid is not dependent upon tourism and just gets on with its life which you are more than welcome to be a part of but no one is desperate to persuade you to be part of.

In any case, after many visits over the last few years, stepping off the plane at Barrajas feels like coming home and although the city is now very familiar to us, it still fills us with incredible excitement.

So much so that, inevitably, after meeting H1 at our hotel in Barrio Salamanca, we headed straight out and, quite frankly, overdid it a bit fitting in visits to nearly twenty bars, each of which provided a small freebie with our cana, before heading off to supper at Asador Ansorena situated near Plaza De Castilla.

H1, of course, had done considerable research searching for a venue for our first supper and lit upon this particular asador because it is one of only three in the whole country that serves true Carne Roja, the stunning beef from Galicia.

Starters of croquetta and morcilla were good, but just passed the time while our kilogram plus of chuleton was cooked above coals. It came to the table with a perfect char on the outside and perfectly “poco hecho” inside as requested. As ever, in Spain, you order beef and that’s what you get. No side dishes to distract from the main event and what a main event it was.

I would have to think long and hard before I could come up with a place that has served beef that I enjoyed as much as this with the crunch of the char giving way to the juicy, rare inside. Stunning and, served well with a bottle of Arzuaga.

Puddings, like starters, are perfunctory but do the job and dishes of ice cream were followed by small chopitos of Pacharan and Orujo before we collected the bill.

With the Euro being so strong, it is not a cheap option with the bill coming out at £100 but, for beef of this quality and for the whole experience back in our favourite city, I begrudge not a penny.

After supper, the owner gave us a little tour of his kitchens, meat locker and held up a large rib of beef for us to admire like a new-born baby. He rubbed his hands along the creamy, yellowing fat lovingly and then lifted it for us to smell. An odd but strangely pleasurable experience.

We may or may not have fitted in another nightcap, I don’t recall but I do recall why I love this country so much and this city in particular.

H1 was as ever, right. I have (and still am) travelling all over the world, but at the heart of the matter is the fact that where ever I go it will not be Spain and it certainly will not be Madrid.

The best city on the planet.